Hosomaki: home made sushi for true lovers

Hosomaki are one of the traditional Japanese dishescommonly better known in its generic term the sushi. It is a typical dish that at the base is made up of rice, seaweed, fish and other elements. Inside it can contain raw, cooked or marinated fish. In Japan, the word sushi literally means “sour” and refers to a wide range of foods prepared with rice. The exotic cuisine is very inviting. Japanese cuisine has now conquered everyone. I personally need to eat sushi at least once a week. Just think that I have 3 restaurants that offer the ‘all you can eat’ formula near my home, so… I can’t resist. But for those who love sushi and can’t do without it, and perhaps thinking about the economic side, want to try to satisfy the pleasure of their palate, and why not, learn how to cook a new dish, today I propose you the recipe to prepare Hosomaki, quite small, cylindrical rice rolls withnori seaweed on the outside, which encloses the rice and fish inside of. Obviously, buying all the ingredients the first time is a big nest egg. But don’t give up, for the following times you will only have to buy the fresh elements you need for the filling.

Ingredients for 4 people

Rice (specific for sushi): 300 g
Rice vinegar: to taste
Sugar: to taste
Algae: to taste
Smoked salmon: 150 g
Smoked tuna: 150 g
Soy sauce: to taste
Bamboo mat: 1

Preparation: 30 minutes
Cooking: 10 minutes
Total: 40 minutes
Calories: 85

Preparation

First you need to prepare the rice a little in advance in order to have the time necessary for it to cool naturally.

Pour the rice into a colander with the iron grid with fine lace and rinse it until the water runs clear. This process can take up to 30 minutes.

Once washed well, place it in a pan forming a layer of one centimeter (it must be well spread, help yourself with your hands). Pour 360 ml of water (the proportion is 600 ml per 500 g of rice), it will be enough to cover the entire surface of the rice by about 1 cm.

Cut out a strip of seaweed and arrange it on the rice (in this way it will acquire the flavor of the seaweed itself). Put a lid on and turn on the gas. When it comes to a boil, cook for 10 minutes, so that the rice absorbs all the water.

Once the rice is cooked, remove the seaweed strip with a spoon.

Now pour the rice into a dish to let it cool.

In a bowl, mix 2/3 tablespoons of rice vinegar and 2/3 tablespoons of sugar. Once mixed, pour it over the rice and mix well.

Moisten a tea towel and place it on the rice. Let it cool naturally for the necessary time (about a couple of hours, so if you want to make sushi for dinner, I recommend cooking the rice in the early afternoon).

To prepare the rolls we need the bamboo mat (which you usually buy in a simple household store, or if you take the sushi kit you will find it inside): place the seaweed on the bamboo mat (keep in mind that for a you can make 2 rolls of hosomaki, then cut it out), and start arranging the rice.

Remember to always have a bowl with water nearby, always wet your hands before picking up the rice. Spread the rice on the seaweed well, distribute it almost to the edges.

Now we can add the salmon or tuna (whichever you prefer); arrange it horizontally.

Now you have to close the roll: starting from the lower part of the seaweed, wrap it on itself and then, with the help of the mat, fold and roll it, tightening it so that the roll is compact (in this way the ingredients do not fall out). Move the mat back and forth without applying too much force to seal the sushi roll well.

Once the rolls are ready, equip yourself with a sharp smooth blade knife and cut them into 7 or 8 parts (for cutting the roll the same technique applies to spreading the rice: always keep a bowl of water at hand to rinse the knife each time, thus preventing the rice from sticking and flaking the roll).

The hosomaki are lightly dipped in the soy sauce. If you like a little stronger taste, you can take a hint of wasabi and put it on the hosomaki, or accompany it with ginger.

Curiosity

There are different types of sushi, but the main ingredients are rice and seaweed.

Sushi rice (sushi-meshi / Sumeshi) is prepared with a white rice, short grain sweet, which is washed and cooked following a particular technique and then wet with rice vinegar, in which sugar and salt are dissolved and slightly heated, kombu and sake. It is then cooled to body temperature before being used.

The vegetable wrap is called nori: an edible seaweed traditionally grown in the ports of Japan. Originally the plants were scraped from the port poles, pressed into sheets and dried in the sun, with a procedure similar to that used for paper. Nori is toasted before being used in food. Its standard dimensions are approximately 18cm by 21cm.

True sushi lovers or those who often have the opportunity to do it at home, can think of the idea of buying the sushi perfect roll: it is a special machine for cutting rolls into pieces, which has different sizes depending on the type of sushi to be to cut.